Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music The Director’s Cut! (1970)
If a fire broke out in the book and film shelve in my apartment, and I only got the chance to save a few books and a few films from a fiery death, What would I save? Michael Wadleigh's documentary capturing Woodstock would now be one of the first things I'd think I'd reach for.
Why? Because it is truly a time machine: a time capsule, a glimpse into one of the most beautiful and peaceful moments in human history. The kind of moment that makes you wish you could time travel only to witness it and this film allows that a little bit. The film succeeds brilliantly in evoking the atmosphere of the festival.
Not only because it is beautifully filmed, which of course since it was the 70's means intense psychedelic colors and light, a delight mostly for two senses your eyes and your ears. The film transports you into the mindset and the hearts, the soul of these people.
The hippies: what they stood for, what they rebelled against, what they so fervently believed in: peace, music, love, really just letting everybody live freely. These people truly believed in freedom and you see in their faces as they're interviewed that they're convinced of their beliefs, these people believed without a doubt the world was going to become a better, prettier, happier place...
On a small farm in Bethel, in upstate New York Woodstock was presented: 3 Days of Peace & Music better known as simply Woodstock nowadays, a 1969 music festival where the largest hippie congregation in history ever assembled to celebrate the festival. Life, love, and music. Michael Wadleigh wrote this documentary in 1970, showing the construction and experiences of those three days, winning an Oscar as best documentary at the time.
The authors of this great festival are the people who attended and lived in Woodstock in addition to the bands that attended. In this documentary, we're shown how many of those present celebrated life and with a motto of love and peace they rejected and protested against wars, specifically the Vietnam War.
Woodstock would go down in history as the most legendary music festival of all time. Everything seemed to work to perfection during that magical summer of 1969: the atmosphere, the people, the music. 500,000 hippies descended into a meadow to hear greats like Jimi Hendrix, The Who, and Jefferson Airplane.
The traffic got stuck in the areas surrounding Woodstock, the food ran out and there were too few toilets and first aid workers. Still, there were hardly any disturbances and help came quickly from all possible corners. The locals donated food, the army flew in relief supplies and doctors offered their services for free. Woodstock proved that half a million young people , for three days, could live and get along in harmony and was thus a symbol of the fraternizing effects of music.
Director Michael Wadleigh was there and shot pictures that you could frame and hang up in your house. In his documentary Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music Wadleigh presents atmospheric images which he alternates with performances and interviews with festival-goers, artists, organizers, local people and even authority.
He appears to have an eye for special moments; the camera always seems to be in the right place at the exact right time. This makes Woodstock more than just your average festival film, but a living and breathing document with high historical value.
The film paints a stunning portrait of the generation that grew up with rock, recreational drugs and free love, but also with racial hatred, the Vietnam War and the threat of nuclear weapons. The magic of Woodstock gave America and other parts of the world, for a brief moment in time the feeling and sensation that peace and freedom were at hand's reach, not an illusion, not a fantasy, a gorgeous and realistic possibility.
The script of Michael Wadleigh is build up according to how this great festival was being constructed and how it was unfolding and shows the coexistence of the assistants. Michael wanted stories of the young people: their feelings about Vietnam, about the time and feelings and thoughts about i, they most certainly had.
He didn't only want it to be music and with several cuts and screen divisions he was visualizing different parts of the farm where people are shown exactly as they are, with absolute spontaneity. His way of filming included mostly close ups and traveling. The camera followed the assistants, in fact there is a part that I found hilarious where Wadleigh follows someone on a motorcycle and he eventually bumps into the helmet of the guy on the motorcycle.
Giving an accurate chronology of what was the first mega festival in the history of music would almost be like attempting to sing a song that we all know there is always someone who doesn't know it. But I think it's good to refresh some facts and curious data.
We know that Woodstock didn't take place in Woodstock but a Bethel farm owned by a good man named Max Yasgur who agreed to receive 6,000 people (in the end there were more than 500,000) to please his son Sam who was a mediator along with his father and the twenty-somethings Michael Lang, Joel Rosenman and Artie Kornfeld, producers and creative minds of the festival.
What perhaps no one imagined is that Woodstock would become an event that would transcend the strictly musical to acquire a deeper meaning: a spiritual and philosophical one, more than half a million people living peacefully for three days, making this festival the milestone that marked a revolution of love And peace counteracting the violent events that happened in the world.
For US $ 18 you could see and hear from the 15th to 17th of August of 1969 (among others) Legendary Janis Joplin, The Who, Country Joe McDonald, Incredible String Band, Ravi Shankar, Joan Baez, Santana, Canned Heat, Mountain, Sly & The Family Stone, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker, Country Joe and the Fish, Ten Years After, The Band, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Johnny Winter, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Sha-Na-Na and Jimi Hendrix. (Anyways eventually an anarchist group broke the fences the first day officially making it a totally free festival).
Those who were not there: Bob Dylan (he was angry with the fans who had harassed him during his motorcycle accident that had kept him away from the stage for a long time). He was only to play at Woodstock '94. King Crimson, because of commitments in Britain; The Byrd said "it's just another summer festival"; Led Zeppelin because they did not want to be "another band on the list"; The Beatles were no longer playing live and John Lennon apparently was unable to enter the United States in those days; The Doors two versions: one that underestimated the festival, the other that Jim Morrison feared he would be killed on stage. In short, we do not know if they later on regretted it or not, I know I would.
The film has so many golden moments that it is difficult to choose a favorite. The aerial shots of the huge crowds. The yogis who are through breathing exercises getting naturally high. The couples that are kissing or making out, or even taking it to the next level. The organizers explaining with a big smile on their face that Woodstock is an utter financial disaster.
A girl with a colorful umbrella on a deserted trampled festival ground.The Chief of Police calling the parents of America to be proud of their offspring. Hippies Chanting “NO RAIN! “, noticing that it doesn't help, and then allowed themselves to fall and glide into the mud.
There are only a few minor points. The picture quality logically falters here and there, and leaves stuff to be desired, interviews are difficult to understand because of the background noise and Wadleigh is somewhat too excited with alternating formats at times.
Not everyone likes to contemplate big black bars on the screen. Also, the documentary with It's 3.5 hours is perhaps a bit on the long side. But, then you at least have something that entertains for a few hours right? in the case of Woodstock I'm inclined to say more content is definitely better than less content of lesser quality!
(And personally I find It's imperfectness uterrly charming, it is authentic just like it was, if you go to a concert or a big festival there's just a lot of noise and a lot of what's going on might actually pass you by, and that's that). Woodstock is a film that should be seen by every music lover. Even if you, metaphorically speaking hatched out of the egg after the hippie era.
It is enormously striking to me that nearly everybody that is interviewed is either grinning, smiling, chuckling or laughing: animatedly or loudly, and the ones that aren't being interviewed are having silly or deep, philosophical conversations or they're joking with a friend.
They're smoking weed, they're skinny dipping, they're kissing or they're off making love in between the grass and the flowers, no inhibition, and no shame. For me also striking is that these people when you’re watching them seemed so alive, they were right at the moment, so into it, they were really living it, no one was only half experiencing it, because they were more focused on getting good footage on their phones, nowadays half of them would probably be staring at a screen.
These people were really genuinely happy (with the exception of one angry older couple that lived near the festival, who were angry at all the noise and the kids taking drugs, to which somebody counter suggests they're peaceful, maybe we should all smoke); happiness permeates throughout the entire film and you really can't help but smile, the belief in love and kindness that permeates through here would melt the hardest and the coldest of hearts.
Woodstock shows that people can come together and coexist together, calmly in harmony and in peace, without violence, without posing a threat to one another. Everybody seemed to believe in helping one another, and it all came from the belief in one thing: peace and love, the power of love, that loving is the one thing that frees us. And it is a beautiful thing to witness.
Of course, it wasn't all perfect or beautiful, Woodstock was, of course, one massive open air manifesto for love and peace, a protest against one thing war and violence, against the worst sides of our nature.
There is something harrowing and chilling under the surface: of some of the happy, smiling young men that you see, some even if they didn't believe in war and killing would be sent to Vietnam and never come back. Some would experience shell shock afterward or other psychological disorders, some would never smile or make love again; but hey at least for three days they were completely free, they spoke their minds and they defended their beliefs.
And yet still there the army was: helping them, probably partly so that they'd have enough men to serve in the army later... but still it was an act of kindness and they seemed to really believe something good was happening, they brought them food (there allegedly once during the festival was breakfast on bed or better in tent for everyone) and drinks. Everybody simply seemed absorbed into the magic of the festival, everyone believed in kindness and in love for a few days.
Woodstock was declared a disaster area and a financial disaster as I said earlier and, yet the organizers were happy and smiling about it, they didn’t see it as an economical failure, they saw it as a success, human nature at It's best, everybody at the festival was civil with one another.
One of the reasons that I love the documentary, even if the hippie movement and what they believed in didn't last and in many things, I'd say, unfortunately, except of course for the STDS that inevitably came with free love...
But I love that these people so passionately defended and held onto their beliefs, even in the world around them weren't all that beautiful at that particular time, there were fear and threats also, but they preferred defending the positive and trying to get the world to see the positive rather than focusing all their attention and energy on the negative, they actually, physically tried to make a change...
It's a nice reminder of human decency and of the fact that people can live with each other harmoniously, that everybody can be each other's equal, these people really believed that and for a beautiful moment in time it really was so...
I find that watching Woodstock when really helped to instill a new positivity, a renewed belief in humanity, but then I think: it didn't last, was it really one of the all-time highs in human civilisation and has it in some aspects gone downhill since? But then some part of me thinks if these people could do it, then surely it oughta be possible again, so I'm a bit conflicted by the end, both sad and happy.
And then there's the music of course! It is pure, honest and straight from the heart ... The lineup of Woodstock was mouth-watering and would give many people goosebumps and chills of pleasure and many performances are considered classic. Richie Havens who improvised the song "Freedomi" during his set.
Janis Joplin who died too young was singing her lungs out.”Pinball Wizard" by The Who and "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix. Carlos Santana that presents himself to a large audience, with a very young Michael Shrieve behind the drums. The energy explodes from the stage and all that beautiful music is thanks to the improved sound quality of the Director's Cut allowed to shine even more. So a real treat!
The biggest concern and which was the motive of the film is to show the rejection of the government system as such, people were tired of wars and the festival was a way of being able to express themselves and not to obtain an economic purpose but rather to unify and to make known to the world their peaceful ideals and the love of art.
It shows how an event defined a generation, how the love of art and music can achieve a feeling and unite many people in the goal of achieving peace. In addition, Wadleigh accomplished his mission, to show the ideas and stories of the people besides making evident what the acts that took place in Woodstock were. Simply a delightful documentary.
Some facts:
The poster of Woodstock 69 is one of the most famous images in the world and also became a symbol of peace. Rolling Stone included the festival on a list of the 50 defining moments in Rock and music history. Jimi Hendrix insisted on closing the festival and gave the longest concert of his career. The festival started an hour late because it was difficult to find any of the artists in the fit enough condition to perform.
Tim Hardin was too high and his repertoire was limited to two tracks (later he died of a heroin overdose). Richie Havens, who opened the first day's performances, had to lengthen his repertoire because the next ones to play were not ready. His song Freedom became a worldwide anthem.
The drugs deserve a separate paragraph: Nine out of ten festival goers smoked marijuana and in total 33 were arrested for drug use, according to health services. "Bad trip" cases with LSD: 400. Bond price in Dollars to release those arrested for possession of LSD: 20,000. Price in dollars of 30 grams of marijuana: 15.
There were two births in Woodstock, as well as free sex, mud, music, food shortages (the army sent aid by air). Three deaths: a boy hit by a tractor while sleeping, another after a ruptured appendix and another by overdose of heroin. Hundreds of people who could not get through because of chaos in transit. The average speed of the cars was 1.6 km per hour. And a millionaire loss that took 10 years to recover from for the organizers. The cleaning of the property demanded U $ S 100,000 extra.
To finish, I extract a paragraph written a couple of years ago in Rolling Stone magazine signed by Andy Greene. The note refers to the filming of the documentary and it seems to me a beautiful summary:
“Smiling nuns make peace signs to the camera; Cops eat ice cream from popsicle sticks with hippies; And the old folks make a common cause to feed the fans. And, like everyone in Woodstock, the very existence of the documentary is a small miracle. Just moments after cameraman David Myers finished filming a couple having sex on the grown grass at the Woodstock festival in 1969, he found a garbage man that was cleaning a chemical toilet that flooded with a huge sucking hose. "It’s hard to keep up,” he says. “I’m glad to do it for these kids. My son is here, and I also have one in Vietnam. Now he’s in the demilitarised zone, flying helicopters. "As the man heads to his next chemical toilet, a tall hippie stumbles out of one, smoking a pipe, looks fixedly at the camera and says, ”They don’t see us. Do you want some?”
L-R: Michael Wadleigh, Renee Wadleigh, Martin Scorsese
Arlo Guthrie: It's incredible. I heard the New York Thruway's closed.
News Reporter: Closed? This morning we heard that they were backed down Route 17 with an eight hour delay.
Arlo Guthrie: Right. Well, the New York Thruway's closed. Isn't that far out?
“Max Yasgur: [to crowd] This is the largest group of people ever assembled in one place, and I think you people have proven something to the world: that a half a million kids can get together and have three days of fun and music and have nothing *but* fun and music, and I God bless you for it!”
